Tapped on the Shoulder - Petrina Donnelly

Petrina Donnelly has spent thirty-three years in nursing, from a hospital ward in Craigavon to one of Ireland's new Regional Director of Nursing and Midwifery posts. Ask how she got there, and the answer is rarely a plan — it's a series of people who encouraged her to take the next step before she felt ready. She talks to Marie Kilduff about the mentors who shaped her, what it's actually like to lead a brand-new region with no map and no handover, her vision for a genuinely integrated health service, and how a senior leader keeps going without running herself down, with a returning contribution from her former colleague Paul Gallagher, recorded before his retirement.